Warm and homely British hotel rooms

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful  in these British hotel rooms with their own roaring hearth. Stephen Bleach gets all stoked up

Brrr. Chilly out. What you want at this time of year is to be ensconced with a very close friend in front of a real fire. And not in a public bar or lounge, with all manner of strangers milling around: you want that heartwarming blaze in your very own bedroom, where you can... well... relax.

Unfortunately, this idyllic arrangement is increasingly hard to come by. An unholy alliance of local-government safety-obsessives, can’t-be-bothered hoteliers and persuasive coal-effect gas-fire salesmen have all but chased the real, raunchy bedside blaze out of existence.

But a few brave souls are still keeping the home-from-home fires burning — and we’ve tracked them down. We’ve rigorously excluded holiday cottages, where you’re expected to go gathering winter fuel for yourself and sweep up the mess afterwards: who wants to be bothered with all that fuss on a short break? At the hotels below, someone else will do